IF THERE IS ANY ISSUE more contentious
than the amount of oil likely to be found
beneath the coastal plain, it is the extent
to which the infrastructure necessary to extract
it-roads, airstrips, drilling pads-might
adversely affect habitat essential to some 200
species of birds and mammals, including the
barren-ground caribou of the Porcupine herd.
Numbering about 130,000 animals, the herd
traditionally migrates from scattered winter
ranges in the boreal forests of Alaska and
northwest Canada over the mountains to the
coastal plain. There the pregnant cows drop
their calves in an environment favorable for
forage, relatively free of predators, and fanned
by mosquito-repelling ocean breezes.
In the rhetorical wars between those who
favor drilling the 1002 and those who don't, the
caribou issue raises conflicting claims. Propo
nents point to the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay and
Kuparuk, some 60 miles west of the refuge,
where a different caribou herd, the central Arc
tic, has increased its numbers in spite of sev
eral hundred miles of gravel roads and more
than a thousand miles of elevated pipe. Oppo
nents respond that the industry's argument
ignores a major difference between the two
herds: The 1002 coastal plain provides calving
habitat for a herd nearly five times as large as
the central Arctic herd, in an area one-fifth
as big. Some biologists fear development here
could push caribou into the foothills, where
calves would be more prone to predation.
Then there are the arguments over "foot
prints" (the area occupied by infrastructure)
and the latest advances in drilling technology.
Critics of the oil industry point to the sprawl
ing development around Prudhoe and warn
that it could happen again in the 1002. Where
upon supporters of the industry explain that
development of the 1002 can be achieved with
a total footprint no larger than that of a
fair-size airport. But since the oil there is
believed to be scattered in many small pockets
rather than in one large pool, as at Prudhoe,
environmentalists argue that the infrastructure
would fall across the 1002 like a net. Most
opponents of development, however, do con
cede that advanced technology-multilateral
drilling and directional drilling that can reach
farther out from a smaller drill-pad foot
print-would help reduce the net's impact.
In the exploratory phase, the oil industry has
ARTBYJOHNR. ANDERSON,JR.,NGMART;DATAANDMODELING:ENERGYINFORMATION
ADMINISTRATION,
WORLDRESOURCESINSTITUTE
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